Slow Burn Read online

  Drew lightly slugged Ben in the shoulder. “I stopped by before I went out for the night.”

  “Great,” Cale said, relieved Maggie wouldn’t be left alone. “Problem solved.”

  “Excuse me, gentlemen, but there is no problem to be solved.” She glared at each of them in turn. “I can take care of myself.”

  Cale’s hand stilled on the gate handle as he exchanged sympathetic glances with his brothers. Great. He’d gone and insulted her again.

  “Please thank your aunt for the invitation,” she told Drew firmly, “but I’ll pass. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

  Drew slung his arm over Maggie’s shoulder. Cale struggled to ignore the sharp twist of his insides at the sight of his brother touching Maggie.

  “You might as well agree now, Mags,” Drew said with more familiarity than Cale appreciated. “Old Ben here is mild compared to our aunt. Believe me, once she makes up her mind about something, she won’t take no for an answer. She has a way of getting people to do what she wants.”

  Cale nodded quickly in agreement, having been on the receiving end of his aunt’s determination on numerous occasions. “If I don’t take you over there, Debbie will come here herself and drag you kicking and screaming.”

  “Not to mention what she’ll put Cale through,” Ben added with his own conspiratorial nod of agreement.

  Maggie squared her shoulders. The defiant lift of her chin made each of them aware she wasn’t thrilled with them for ganging up on her.

  “Fine. I’ll go,” she finally relented. She nailed Cale with her gaze, gold rims and all flaring to life. “And just so you know, I’m agreeing under absolute protest just to save your hide.”

  His hide, as she put it, wasn’t the one in danger. When she looked at him that way, full of fire and sass, her own hide was the one in need of saving. The woman tested the limits of his control. Heaven help them both when the tenuous thread eventually snapped.

  AFTER RETURNING from the grocery store with enough food to feed a small army for a month, Cale disappeared into his bedroom to catch a few hours sleep before his shift. Maggie didn’t mind the solitude in the least, and felt more than comfortable being left to her own devices.

  Although she understood their concern, she still resented Cale and his brothers talking her into spending the night with their aunt. But when the Perry brothers turned on the charm, even the most cold-hearted woman would be hard-pressed to deny them whatever they wanted.

  She genuinely liked Cale’s brothers. They were good men and they shared a bond she could never hope to understand, which led her to believe she must be an only child.

  She liberated Cale’s laptop computer from the rolltop desk in the living room, then settled down in the cozy morning room with a can of cola and the Saturday edition of the LA Times. A soft sea breeze occasionally caused the miniblinds to slap against the window frame while Gilda played quietly with a colorful ladder in her cage. Pearl napped on the floor beneath the table at Maggie’s feet. Even the cats had decided to join her, stretching out on the small wicker buffet table beneath the rays of sunlight filtering into the room. She’d never feel lonely with such a menagerie for company.

  While she waited for the computer to boot up, she opened the newspaper and immediately located the obituaries. She scanned the names and photos until one caught her attention. Britta Fenway, a thirty-two-year-old single woman whose life had ended tragically in a boating accident off Catalina Island. Without considering why, Maggie circled the name with the black felt-tipped pen she’d snagged from Cale’s drawer.

  She set the newspaper aside and turned her attention to the computer, her intent to make a list of the fragmented pieces of the dreams and images she’d been recalling, hoping that by putting them into words, she might find a pattern to her thoughts. She had her doubts the wispy images would actually lead her to more solid clues about herself, but at least if she put them down into some semblance of order, she could attempt to view them objectively. If luck were on her side for a change, she might even garner a few clues to lead her to someone who knew she existed. Perhaps even the man hidden in the shadows of her dreams.

  She called up the word processing program and started jotting notes as they came to her. The cast made her typing skills feel elementary at best, yet, despite the cumbersome hindrance, her fingers fell easily over the correct keys. The three pages of notes were as scattered and disconnected as her dreams, but the progress pleased her. She saved the file to print later, then called up another blank sheet. How she knew her way around the word processing program she really couldn’t guess, but there was no denying how naturally it came to her.

  Feeling truly hopeful for the first time in days, she started typing again, noting the various physical items from her dreams. Halfway through the list, her mind wandered back to the man hidden in the shadows. Who was he? He meant a great deal to her, that much she did know. A relative, perhaps? Or possibly a mentor? She couldn’t say with absolute certainty, but she had a strong feeling that whoever he was, there was nothing romantic about their liaison.

  She pulled in a deep, relaxing breath, sat back then closed her eyes. After two more deep cleansing breaths, the first image came to her. With her eyes still closed, she sat up and settled her fingers over the keyboard. She typed, sporadically at first, as the images floated in and out of her consciousness.

  She took down the bits and pieces of conversation she heard from people who were unfamiliar to her. She documented the time and space of places she couldn’t remember ever visiting. A range of emotions, too many to capture in a single thought, swamped her and clamored for attention. Her only hope of understanding them was to record them for later dissection.

  Then she saw him. A wall of glass separated them, but she saw him clearly. Fear for his safety climbed her spine. He shouldn’t have come.

  A hand touched her shoulder. It was time to go.

  She stood to leave. Sadness cloaked him, the emotion palpable in his dark chocolate-colored eyes as he looked at her and mouthed an apology she couldn’t hear. The lines of his face were deeper than usual. The gray at his temples, which had always given him a distinguished quality, were whiter than she remembered.

  For the first time in her life, her father looked every second of his fifty-eight years.

  AFTERNOON SHADOWS darkened the bedroom as Cale slowly opened his eyes. He turned his head on the pillow to check the bedside clock in case he’d either inadvertently failed to set the alarm or had hit the snooze button in his sleep, the latter being the most likely. Rising, he glanced around the room, a little surprised to find himself alone since he could always count on Frankie and Johnny for company when an afternoon nap was involved.

  After a quick steaming shower to help shed the last vestiges of sleep, he dressed and went in search of Maggie. Since she’d already packed what she needed for girls’ night at Deb’s into the small nylon duffel he’d loaned her, they had plenty of time for an early supper out if they left within the next twenty minutes or so. That way they wouldn’t have to rush, and he’d still have plenty of time to drop her off and make it to the station house before his shift began.

  The living room was empty. He turned, about to head downstairs to check the guestroom, but stopped and listened. A repetitive, rhythmic clicking sound drifted toward him. He concentrated, quickly determining the noise was coming from the morning room.

  He turned back and walked through the kitchen to the morning room. There, seated at the table with his laptop, sat Maggie, typing with record speed. Given the cumbersome cast, he was more than impressed by the constant rhythmic click of the keys as her fingers literally flew over the keyboard.

  He gently cleared his throat, not wanting to startle her. She didn’t so much as flinch, just kept typing away, her sole focus the laptop’s monitor. Pearl did react, however, her tail thumping against the tiled floor in greeting.

  Impervious to the intrusion, Maggie continued typing. Pearl slowly stretched. With her bi
g paws in front of her, she lifted her rump in the air and issued a dramatic groan before straightening lazily. Pearl nudged Maggie’s leg with her muzzle as if signaling they had company, then made her way out from beneath the table.

  Maggie let out a contented sigh. Her hands fell from the keyboard and she leaned back in the chair, a satisfied expression on her beautiful face. She must have sensed his presence, because she turned her head in his direction.

  The smile curving her luscious mouth was bright enough to lighten the room. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Not long.” He pulled out a chair and sat. “What have you been up to?”

  She leaned forward and entered a few commands in the computer. “I had a breakthrough.”

  Had she recovered the missing pieces of her past? His heart thumped behind his ribs, whether from excitement or dread, he couldn’t be sure. “What kind of breakthrough?” he asked cautiously.

  She closed the lid of the laptop with a snap, then flashed him another one of those high-wattage smiles. “I work for sex.”

  9

  “SEX,” Cale muttered, for what had to be the fiftieth time in the last three hours. If there was one thing he could say about Maggie, it was that she certainly kept him on his toes. God only knew what she’d reveal to him next.

  He returned the portable defibrillator to its storage place behind the side panel of the ambulance. He was still recovering from the initial shock of Maggie’s outrageous statement. Once she’d stopped laughing at his misconception, she’d explained that she didn’t work for “sex,” but for S.E.C.S., which she thought was a governmental agency of some kind.

  Before he’d had time to digest that wild explanation, she’d delivered the news that she’d “seen” her father, although she couldn’t fully explain where she’d been at the time. The details she’d been intent on discussing over dinner were sketchy at best, which did nothing to ease her frustration, or reduce the nagging suspicion in the back of his mind.

  He should be happy for her. She was making progress, and that was a good thing.

  Wasn’t it?

  “Woman trouble already?”

  Cale snapped the right side panel of the rig closed and turned to find Scorch walking toward him. “What makes you say that?”

  Scorch leaned his shoulder against the rig. “Because I recognize the look.” He kept his voice low. “It’s the same one I’ve been seeing in the mirror lately.”

  Beneath the bright fluorescent glare of the overhead lights in the bay, Cale stared hard at his friend. “Yeah? And what look is that?”

  Scorch glanced quickly around the deserted area, then back at Cale. “The one that tells the whole friggin’ world there’s a woman who’s got you tied up in knots, man.”

  No matter how much he wished otherwise, Cale didn’t have the heart to disagree with Scorch. How could he when his temporary partner for the night had nailed exactly how he’d been feeling since Maggie blindsided him with her most recent revelation? Each memory she recalled baffled him even more and made him feel as if she was slipping away from him. Not that she’d ever been his in the first place, he reminded himself.

  “Well?” Scorch prompted. “Has Amnesia Chick got you all twisted, or what?”

  Cale walked around to the back of the rig and opened the door. “Her name is Maggie,” he said, his tone sharper than he’d intended. “And there’s nothing to get all twisted about. Once her memory returns, she’ll be moving on.”

  That’s why he was in a bad mood, he realized. Each memory Maggie recovered brought her closer to saying goodbye. He couldn’t explain why it bothered him. Once he’d served their purpose, didn’t they always walk away in the end? Why should Maggie be different?

  Because she’d gotten under his skin, that’s why. Because he couldn’t get through an hour without thinking about her. Because, dammit, he didn’t want her to leave once her issues were resolved.

  Scorch followed him and stood outside the open door of the rig. “Then what are you getting all defensive about? Unless…”

  Unless this one means more to you, Cale finished silently and frowned.

  He shoved the thought aside and checked each of the drawers and cabinets, making sure they had ample supplies for the night ahead. He’d worked enough Saturday nights to know the current lull wouldn’t last for long.

  “Unless you help me take a quick inventory before we get a call,” he said to Scorch, “we could be in it deep. The bars and dance clubs will be closing in about six hours.”

  Scorch rubbed at the back of his neck with his hand, then climbed into the rig with Cale. “Women can be a pain,” he muttered.

  Cale stopped his count of the gauze pads. “Any woman in particular?” Maybe if he focused on Scorch’s problems instead of his own, his mood would improve. Not likely, but worth a shot.

  Scorch nodded and looked away. “An E.R. nurse.”

  “Which one?”

  “Tilly. And don’t go getting all big brother on me, either,” Scorch warned. “This is serious, so keep it to yourself for a while.”

  Cale appreciated Scorch’s reluctance to publicly announce his interest in Tilly since the guys in the house had a reputation as world-class pranksters that respected little in the way of boundaries.

  “You ask her out yet?”

  “Twice,” Scorch admitted. “She turned me down flat, too.”

  “Maybe she’s not interested.”

  Scorch finger-combed his spiky red hair and thought quietly for a moment. “Nah. A stud like me? She’ll be putty in my hands.”

  The self-proclaimed stud was about as scrawny as a sixteen-year-old. Still, Tom “Scorch” McDonough rarely came stag to any of the functions the guys hosted, which had to account for something about his appeal to the opposite sex.

  Cale laughed. “Uh-huh. That explains why she’s rejected you. Twice.”

  Half an hour later, the inventory and restocking complete, Cale closed up the rig and walked out of the bay. Scorch followed, and together they stood quietly absorbing the hushed sounds of the city as dusk settled over Santa Monica. Cale stuffed his hands in the front pockets of his uniform trousers and looked up at the darkening sky.

  Maggie’s words drifted into his consciousness.

  A wall of glass separated us.

  “What kind of places do you know of that could have a wall of glass in them?”

  “Hospitals,” Scorch suggested with a shrug. “Why do you ask?”

  Cale thought of the E.R., then shook his head. “No particular reason,” he said, knowing his friend would respect his willingness to keep certain information to himself. “What about a bank?”

  Someone touched my shoulder, as if my time was up.

  The peaceful night sounds of the city surrounded them. Cale understood, as did all the guys who worked the night shift, that before much longer there’d be nothing peaceful about a city quite often filled with random violence and tragedy. L.A. was still a great place, and Cale couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. There weren’t many areas that could lay claim to stretches of sandy beaches, awe-inspiring mountain ranges or the wide expanse and beauty of the desert, not to mention just about any form of entertainment. In his line of work, however, he tended to experience more of its less-than-stellar characteristics.

  “Banks usually have an open-floor plan,” Scorch answered after a few minutes. “What about a visiting area?”

  He said he was sorry, but I couldn’t hear his voice because of the glass separating us.

  A dead weight landed on Cale’s chest. “A visiting area?” He hoped like hell the conclusion he’d just drawn had taken a wrong turn.

  “Sure,” Scorch said. “You know, like at a prison.”

  Cale let out a long, slow breath. “Yeah,” he said solemnly. “That’s what I was thinking, too.”

  “IT’S A PROVEN medical fact that chocolate is good for you.” To prove her point, Tilly snatched another piece of Debbie’s homemade fudge from the squ
are tin before passing it around to Maggie. “I’m a nurse, I know about these things.”

  Maggie filched another piece of the creamy-smooth candy and bit into it. Rich flavor exploded in her mouth. She briefly closed her eyes and moaned in ecstasy. The word willpower had obviously been deleted from her vocabulary, but when chocolate was involved, especially homemade, who cared?

  She opened her eyes and passed the tin to Cale’s aunt.

  “Of course, it is,” Debbie added, her soft blue eyes twinkling with mischief. “Done right, chocolate will cover at least a few of the basic food groups—fruit, dairy and grains.”

  Maggie downed the last of her second margarita for the night. Her reluctance to stay with Cale’s aunt had dissipated less than five minutes after she’d arrived. Debbie Perry was a warm, kind woman with laughing eyes and a quick smile. It was easy to see where Cale and his brothers had obtained their senses of humor.

  Maggie lifted her empty glass. “Chocolate is a vegetable,” she proclaimed regally.

  Tilly’s gentle laughter filled the room. “A veggie?” She slipped a strand of her chin-length sable hair behind her ear. “Fat, yes, but come on, Maggie. Veggie is pushing it, don’t you think?”

  “There is no fat whatsoever in chocolate, ladies,” Debbie reminded them with mock sternness. “And don’t either of you dare to burst my bubble, either.”

  She took their empty glasses and headed toward the kitchen. Within seconds the sound of the blender echoed through the open area into the family room.

  “Sure,” Maggie said, grateful Debbie went heavy on the strawberry margarita mix and easy on the tequila. “Chocolate comes from cocoa beans, right? Beans are a vegetable, so it qualifies.”

  “That’s a thin one.” Tilly said loud enough to be heard over the blender. “And that only covers one food group.”

  The blender stopped and Debbie refilled their glasses. “Chocolate cake,” she said, signaling to them that drinks were served. “Grain.”

  Maggie stood, hitched up the loose-fitting pajama bottoms she wore and giggled. “Milk chocolate.”